Restaurant Issue Summer 2024

 

Po Boy Views

By

Phil LaMancusa

Oh Thrill

Or

Kitchen Brigades

        “What a thrill--my thumb instead of an onion. The top quite gone except for a sort of hinge of skin, a flap like a hat. Dead white. Then that red plush.” (Sylvia Plath: Cut)

        Ah yes, the slip of a knife whist working: an everyday possibility in any cook’s life; albeit, a day to day occupational occurrence to avoid for the professional culinarian living the Cook’s Life. The (professional) Cook’s Life is another one of those hard working-dog occupations in the USA (and around the globe) that trajectories toward the reward of a glorious culmination of years of dedication, talent, ambition and loyalty: namely, A Chef’s Life. (There are 936,526 cooks and 285,785 Chefs in the USA (Census.gov)

        The Chef’s Life: another one of those hard working-dog occupations in the USA heading for that glorious culmination of simply getting things done right for a number of years and retiring to Costa Rica (on the beach, of course). Neither occupation is a terribly lucrative job; unless you become famous and then you become something else. Or you may become a restaurant owner and/or celebrity, and that’s really another shade of steed; you’re no longer a cook OR Chef, and possibly not even prosperous, celebrated, wealthy and/or even well liked.

        Ah, yes, (he said again) here comes The Summer Restaurant Issue where we get to tell you who is doing what to tickle your taste buds and stroke your fancy while extracting your hard earned with a smile. Your dining experience might be nineteenth century high society Paris; however, I’m telling you, behind those swinging kitchen doors the atmosphere is solar systems away.

        The professional kitchen may be a strict military like atmosphere, an archaic mental asylum, a street fight free for all, a garage band on major hallucinogens or an armed forces drill team; whichever variation (or combinations) of those scenarios it might be, you can be sure that there are ‘the cooks’ (all of them) and there is ‘The Chef’ (the One).

        The good cook is one who gladly (sometimes reluctantly) “wake up; get up; suit up; show up and shut up”---there are not an over abundance of good cooks. It’s hard work; hot work, exacting work; dangerous work; demanding work and an often times thankless work. Mostly, even after some formal schooling, it’s an ever learning, sometimes overly repetitious; often temper testing and most times competitive profession. Many drop out; few stick it out; some become addicted and develop a passion for the work; a few will rise to be in charge of this controlled mayhem. A number will be brought down by inner demons: sex, drugs, Rock and Roll and/or scandal.

        Cuts, bruises, burns, spills and falls are not uncommon. Family life is not conducive and neither is every day nine-five/Monday-Friday schedules. Kitchen work includes weekends, holidays and the ever unpopular Sunday Brunch shift. The health plan is generally “don’t get sick”. Meals are eaten standing up and breaks are not part of the equation. Why would anyone choose this as a life?

        Okay, c’mon. Yeah I’m talking old school pirate ship, Bedlam, dinosaur, locker room mentality stuff, right? Surely no profession that expects a 5% growth rate (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics) over the next ten years can exist in the so… so… unromantically vulgar extreme. Or can they?

        The current situation with Human Resourced oriented eateries will have us believe that the environment in the service industry as a whole includes fair pay, sane hours, paid breaks and a non-combative kumbaya brotherhood of disciplined and simplistic charismatic Trappist Monks and insinuates that, professionally speaking, we have entered into a twenty-first century Career Nirvana with open arms and left behind the Theodoric the Great mentality of a bloody invasion of psychic insanity complete with paranoia, immaturity, delusions of adequacy and contests of wills.

        The famous Anthony Bourdain’s love-letter-cum-horror-show confessional Kitchen Confidential should be required reading to everyone who ever feels the urge to take employment or even patronize an eating establishment. Let me put it quite simply for anyone that is about to set foot in the front or back door of a food venue in this glorious so called Mecca of gustatory delights:

        “You’re traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind; a journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of the imagination; a land of both shadow and substance; of things and ideas. There’s the signpost up ahead--- you’ve just crossed over into The Dining Zone” (apologies to Rod Serling)

        Yes, while customers (and rightly so) might believe and act like they are the last vestiges of pampered royalty when they eat out; having someone opening doors, pulling out chairs, cooking, serving and cleaning up after them; and believing, (and rightly so) that they are responsible for judging the value of goods and services that are being rendered, the staffs of eating establishments views that ‘client’ through another lens.

        To the management the client is a ‘guest’ in their house; to the servers, that guest is asking to be treated (and rightly so) with respect and deference to the point of being spoiled by the dining ‘experience’; to that Chef, that patron’s happiness can make or break a career; but to the cook in the kitchen, that faceless customer, known only as the order that has been placed for them, represents their challenge to get the job done with professional accuracy and as efficiently as humanly possible so that they can get through the shift and go get a beer; and to the dishwasher, it’s just another dirty plate.

        Next time, let me tell you about the insanity surrounding being a $2.13 an hour (department of labor www.dol.gov) waiter, or being a minimum wage dishwasher working two jobs to support a family in upscale fancy pants gourmangeries. Bon Appétit!